no, the earliest builds were definitely alpha (there was nothing to control, no enemies, no scripting, and a barely-functional editor) [edit]Scratch that... earliest didn't even have the editor. 2nd build did.[/edit] and I'd still categorize the current "development builds" as alpha too, and there's no "funding" going on with it from the public as far as I'm aware.
my point really is that there are probably plenty of other games in alpha on steam that we don't even know about (i.e. dev-only builds).
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Sorry, I didn't explain correctly. There are alpha and beta builds in steam, but is there any option for alpha funding? I have two examples.
Firstly, Trine 2 - when you pre-ordered Trine 2 you where given access to the beta build. However, the difference is that Frozenbyte did not depend on pre-orders in the same way as a alpha funded project does?
Secondly, Krater is now in open beta, and by contacting Fatshark you can get in, this beta is hosted on Steam, but still they are using the user-base for testing, not for funding.
So both those cases there are different test builds on Steam, but neither is what can be considered alpha funding? How does it work with Toki Tori 2?
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Yes, it almost fits, but in practicality it will be almost the same as with Trine 2 i.e. the funding is not done through Steam, it is just that the backers will get an access key to the betas when they are ready. In this case the crowd-sourcing is really not depended on steam, and they could also give beta versions through other channels now that they have said they are going to do DRM free versions also.
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Wow. What a ridiculously exclusive attitude.
These games may not be any good (I have no idea), but there are plenty of great games not on Steam.
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HIB Mojam was 100% charity with a free game added on top. They didn't take the money; they don't owe you anything. If you don't want to help other people, don't give money to charity. Stop whining though.
People are such idiots sometimes...
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Also, HIB Mojam aimed to create complete games in 60 hours.
These IndieRoyale Alpha Bundle games are not meant to be complete games, and are meant to be works in progress.
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You are saving on the bundle, 3079(Beta) is on sale at gamersgate for ~7€ http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-3079/3079-beta
Described as Minecraft+Fallout, still, I´ll pass for the moment.
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Yes, and you realize what no Steam = no buy means right? And the fact that they have basically nothing to do with each other? If they stated you would get a Steam key once the game is fully released, I'd buy it. But they don't. And so I won't. You do get a Desura key for each of them, so why no Steam key?
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be a game developer or a bundle organizer and you will know why
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Because Steam generally doesn't take alpha games (and very rarely takes Betas). They can't just magic this shit up out of thin air. Desura is a much more open platform and y'know, runs IndieRoyale. So expecting alphas to be on Steam is generally moronic.
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Honestly I don't care if they're Alpha or Beta or what. If it's not on steam, or if I don't get a key to it when it DOES get on steam, I'm just not interested. I don't care whether or not steam has alpha games on its list. They won't be alpha games forever. And either way I can't be bothered with 3 games I've never heard of if they wont at least show up in my steam library. If you're interested, that's fantastic, more power to you. But nobody said they expected steam keys for these games. They've said that BECAUSE there are no steam keys, they aren't buying the bundle.
Come on now, let's see how you can be condescending in your next post, I'm interested.
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They have said that if the games get on Steam once they're finished then you'll get a key. They literally can't promise any more than that.
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only the 3rd game looks nice, but not my genre, not buying
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I picked it up, although I was also hoping for Xenonauts too ;_;
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same here but i was interested in 3079 and towns seeing them in gamersgate and desura for a while so picked it up , 3 games for 1/2 the cost of 1 with full support throughout the life of game, nice
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Mojam was done with the sole objective of making a playable game in sixty hours with all proceeds going to charity (Humble Bundle made a massive loss on it as they did not take a single cent to pay for website upkeep).
This is a bundle for games which will have full length development times, are merely in their alpha stage and are hoping for a bit of an extra boost in both budget and public interest (I've never heard of these games before today). They're not going to livestream that.
The bundles aren't comparable at all.
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Well, I'm not interested in this bundle. I like to support developers, but doesn't mean I'll throw my money on everything with the indie label. When they're fully featured and on steam, that's another thing
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i am disappoint.
I'm not interested in Minecraft and two of the three (really? only three games for your alpha pack launch, Royale?!) [strike]emphasize mining[/strike] [edit]share a heavy Minecraft influence[/edit].
The remaining game looks interesting at first, but then a bit repetitive and boring -- not enough variety in the levels (okay, it's an alpha... that could change) and not much in the way of story (so far as I can tell).
In any case... not enough polish here for not enough awesomeness or variety or uniqueness, imho == getting not a bit of my money. :-\
Not to mention... the latest from Voxatron (that HIB alpha)... development is not as rapid as I would hope -- I wouldn't hold much hope for other alphas being much different. (Of course... that HIB also included Binding of Isaac, Blocks That Matter, and Gish beat-the-average bonuses plus non-Steam of the developer's other games... I'll be even more disappoint if IR can't pull something similar off.)
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I like buying games in part because I don't have to back them up. I just have to redownload Steam and then redownload and reinstall the games.
...or, in the case of DRM-free games, just redownload and reinstall them.
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I... Have you read the Steam EULA? The very first clause is you buy a license that allows you to use the games, not the games themselves. That means there's a very strict code of conduct you have to obey or they can revoke your license and take the game away from you. Otherwise, the very day Steam stops existing for whatever reason (bankruptcy, hackers, you name it) you can't play your games anymore.
I'll admit I like Steam. But whenever I buy a bundle, I keep the link somewhere so that if Steam wrongs me I can just download most of my games from the bundles. However I cannot say in good conscience that managing games with Steam is easy. It sucks, period. There should be ways of listing your games - by rating, by hours played... and perhaps put them in two-three categories at once too (a category for Action/Shooters and another for Co-op so that you can get Zombie Shooter in both for example).
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"Otherwise, the very day Steam stops existing for whatever reason (bankruptcy, hackers, you name it) you can't play your games anymore."
I imagine that there is a very good contingency plan in place for this event, given Steam's numbers.
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The categories part, you can't. Outside of "Favorites", you can't categorize/tag a game as more than one thing. I hate that too. And I assume he meant "by rating" as in a personal rating, not just Metacritic score or the "Favorite" (starred/not starred) rating -- if you don't need any other categories though, you could categorize them with personal ratings.
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You never buy the games themselves, even if you have a physical dvd with a copy of it, you don't own it. Legally you only get a license to install the game so it's the same deal anyway. And what if your disk goes out of order? What if you misplace it? What if you give it to a friend and forget about it? I had about ten awesome game disks I bought looong time ago and I don't have any of them anymore because of the reasons mentioned above. It's so much safer to know that there's always a legal way to download your own copy of the game rather than to hope your disk stays alive. Not to mention the awesome cloud saves system protecting you from a HDD failure.
After all it's much easier to remember a single password than to keep a pile of dvds on your shelves.
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While I've recently acquired a number of games on Steam, most of my games are still not on Steam.
Steam only does two things:
The second one, to me, is not the greatest thing in the world, and the first one merely means that I don't have to back stuff up.
I still prefer using folder/files view to get to stuff, double-click/press-enter-on the .EXE file, etc..
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I really want to support Indie games, and the bundles, but I just can't see myself playing any of these.
I just don't have the time for Towns.
If I haven't played Fallout yet, why bother with 3079?
And I still have a half dozen puzzle games in my library incomplete, so Wyv and Keep is just not compelling enough to jump ahead of them.
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Towns looks interesting, like an easier Dwarf Fortress. Then a Minecraft and Terraria mod. And supporting them gives access to Alpha versions, but not beta or full release?
Nice effort, but pass.
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Randomly generated blocky terrain. It seems to have some cool features, like that zip-line, but you can't deny it wouldn't look like it does without Minecraft. And that third game uses the same textures from Terraria, even if the gameplay is different, hence the term "mod".
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I know this. It was mean to be derogatory.
Using another game's textures isn't modding, you're right. It's lazy.
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The Indieroyale Alpha Bundle just started.
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